<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>His Silence is Deafening by beyourmythical-bitch (dip_the_pip)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24392023">His Silence is Deafening</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dip_the_pip/pseuds/beyourmythical-bitch'>beyourmythical-bitch (dip_the_pip)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rhett &amp; Link</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood depression, Chronic Depression, Depression, Parent Link Neal, Parent Rhett McLaughlin, Suicidal Thoughts, supportive rhett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:02:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,400</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24392023</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dip_the_pip/pseuds/beyourmythical-bitch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhett's always been the one to listen to Link, to help him out as much as he possibly can for as long as he can remember. Eventually, he can't handle the weight of that responsibility and recommends Link gets some help.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>His Silence is Deafening</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Please read the tags before reading! Nothing is graphic but the subjects may be sensitive, please be safe! &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He’d always get quiet, which was unusual for Link, who always felt he had to yell the loudest to be noticed. He didn’t need to, though, because Rhett always noticed him. While people would get annoyed and fed up with Link’s energetic and loud tones, Rhett was more concerned when his best friend would show up to school and barely say a word. He’d mumble if called upon in class, and he’d avoid the other kids at recess and opt for sitting alone against a tree and watching the world move by.</p>
<p>And on days like those, Rhett doesn’t let him sit alone.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Sleepovers with Link were always fun. They would stay up super late into the night, way past the time Mama Di or Sue would ever let them. But by the time the clock was ticking 1am, Rhett would always be exhausted. Link, however, would still be wide awake, despite the bags under his eyes, and ready to put on another movie.</p>
<p>“C’mon, man,” Rhett would whine, “can’t we just sleep?”</p>
<p>Link shrugged, “You can,”</p>
<p>“You aren’t gonna sleep?”</p>
<p>“I’ll try, I just,” Link shrugged, “sometimes I can’t,”</p>
<p>Rhett looked over at his friend, frowning a bit, “you just don’t sleep sometimes?”</p>
<p>“Well, I try, I just, I dunno,” Link frowned, pulling his knees to his chest, “Sometimes it feels like there’s a little hamster in my brain running super fast on a wheel all the time,”</p>
<p>Rhett looked confused, scrunching up his nose, “So, like, it doesn’t stop runnin’, so you can’t sleep?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, sorta. But, then, like, sometimes…sometimes the hamsters sad, and just lays on the wheel and doesn’t wanna run at all, even though they’re like, meant to love running on wheels,”</p>
<p>“What happens when the hamsters sad?” Rhett asked softly, feeling like he was finally getting some sort of insight into his best friend.</p>
<p>“Then…Then I get to sleep. But the hamster makes me sad too. Even when he’s running super fast, he’s sad,”</p>
<p>“I don’t get it,” Rhett shook his head a bit, “Why are you always sad?”</p>
<p>Link shrugged his shoulders weakly, “Because the hamsters sad,”</p>
<p>“But there isn’t really a sad hamster in your brain,”</p>
<p>Link looked off to the side, looking anywhere but at Rhett, “No,” He mumbled, “Just a sad brain, mama says,”</p>
<p>Rhett nodded, trying to look understanding even though he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. Link was sad because his brain said so? Sure, Rhett got sad sometimes but that was because he had gotten yelled at because he was in trouble for something. It never lasted too long. Why did Link’s brain not know how to get over being sad?</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Link never missed school unless he was hunched over a toilet and melting with a fever. After school, on the days Rhett knew Link wasn’t actually sick in bed with the flu, he’d bike across town to Link’s house and pick up a box of cookies on the way. He doesn’t know why, or even when he started bringing the cookies, but Sue would just smile warmly when he’d arrive at her front door, hand him two glasses of chocolate milk, and send him off to Link’s room, even though they weren’t usually allowed to eat snacks in Link’s bed</p>
<p>They never talked about why Link wasn’t at school, by that point it didn’t matter to Rhett. He had asked enough times to realize that Link didn’t really have an answer, or would be making up an answer, so, he stopped asking. Instead, he’d unzip his backpack and sort through his notes to leave behind for Link to copy when he wanted to. He started stealing extra worksheets from class, too, so Link wouldn’t fall behind. He had tried offering to take worksheets to Link, but his teachers would turn up their noses and tell Rhett that it was Link’s responsibility to come to class and catch up on the work he missed. Rhett knew better than them. He knew Link better than anyone, and he knew that it just wasn’t as easy as that for his best friend.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The first time he becomes genuinely worried about his best friend is when they’re throwing rocks off the roof at Campbell.</p>
<p>“It’d be so easy,” Link had said, prompted by nothing. He was gripping a rock in one hand, and the ledge in the other. He didn’t look like he was about to throw it, though. Instead, he was looking down at the ground below them.</p>
<p>“Yeah, if a damn car would hit one,” Rhett had said before chucking another stone. When Link didn’t throw one with him, that’s when he looked over and saw Link staring blankly down. “Wait, what’d be easy?”</p>
<p>Link had shrugged half-heartedly and dropped the rock. It hit off his shoe, but he didn’t flinch. “I dunno, to fall?”</p>
<p>“Well, yeah,” Rhett said lightly, “Technically it is. But we aren’t gonna fall, right?”</p>
<p>Link blinked slowly at the pavement beneath them, and Rhett watched as he swallowed thickly and nodded, “We ain’t gonna fall,” He said quietly, his voice thick and sad, but his eyes looked hopeful.</p>
<p>Without thinking, Rhett pulled Link into a bone-crushing hug, feeling the smaller boy sag against him and wrap his arms around his middle, “I ain’t gonna let you fall,” Rhett mumbled into his hair.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>It irked Rhett a little when he didn’t know what was going on in his best friend’s head. Sometimes it’d take nothing for Link to come home and rant about his classes and the assignments he has to do for a degree he doesn’t even want. Rhett feels a bit guilty for that part, because it’s mostly his fault they couldn’t go to film school. But on Link’s quiet days is when Rhett wanted to hear his thoughts the most. He just wanted to <em>try</em> to understand what was going through Link’s brain.</p>
<p>At different points, he had tried to explain it to Rhett. Like his head was full of fog, and his body felt like lead, that he couldn’t really help it, and that some days were worse than others. He had told Rhett that most days were ‘okay’ days. Great days were rare. Majority of the time Link coasted along on okay days even though all he’d want was to go back to the apartment and sleep. Or just back to the apartment to mindlessly watch Rhett play video games or a show Rhett was into. He had said that it was easy to shut his brain off around Rhett, knowing that he wouldn’t abandon him on those days.</p>
<p>As they got older, Link began to cling less on his bad days. Instead, he filled his days sleeping until Rhett would get home from class and force him to get up, eat something, go for a quick walk to the corner store for snacks. It got easier for Link to skip classes in college, since no one was calling home to his mother to report his absence. Rhett would still give him crap but would get mutual friends in Link’s classes to grab extra notes for Link, since he knew his younger friend didn’t have it in him to bother other people to help him.</p>
<p>“You should talk to someone,” Rhett said one day into the silence of the apartment. He was sitting on the ground and leaning against the couch while he played a video game with the tv muted, and Link was curled up on the couch behind him, watching.</p>
<p>“I talk to you,”</p>
<p>Rhett shook his head a bit, “Not me,” He said, but quickly added, “I mean, yes, keep talking to me, but maybe talk to like…a professional? Maybe someone that can help more that I can?”</p>
<p>“You help plenty,”</p>
<p>Rhett stared at the floor in front of him, dying his in game, “You can’t live your entire life like this, Link,”</p>
<p>“I’ve made it this far,”</p>
<p>“Barely,” Rhett mumbled, and then he felt a knee to his upper back.</p>
<p>“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Link snapped, getting up from the couch and stomping around to stand in front of Rhett.</p>
<p> Rhett looked up at him with sad, tired eyes, “Nothing, I just,” he sighed, “You shouldn’t have to constantly be at war with yourself,”</p>
<p>“Why don’t you let me worry about what I should and shouldn’t put myself through?”</p>
<p>“Because you’d be dead,” Rhett said loudly over Link, getting to his feet quickly, “By a car or bus or truck because you couldn’t be bothered to look both ways before crossing the street, or by flinging yourself off the roof at Campbell, because we both know that thought crossed your mind more than once,”</p>
<p>“And you said you wouldn’t let me fall,”</p>
<p>“And I haven’t!” Rhett yelled, but he quickly lowered his voice again, “Do you know how much pressure that put on me, though? If I didn’t hear from you or see you for a few days, I was constantly afraid every time the phone rang, because I thought it was gonna be your mama calling my mama to tell her something horrible. Eventually, your bad days started to feel like my fault, like I wasn’t doing enough as a friend,”</p>
<p>“It was never about you, Rhett. I never asked you to take care of me or baby me. You’re my best friend, I thought I could go to you for anything,”</p>
<p>“You <em>can</em> come to me for anything, but you’ve been going through this for so long, don’t you want a break?”</p>
<p>Link sniffled angrily, glaring off into the distance, “There’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t need your help, or anyone else’s help, okay? Just…just leave me alone,” Link said, before storming out of the apartment.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Rhett’s sitting on his bed, flipping through old picture books his mama had sent him. So many of them are of him and Link. Majority of them are. In some, he can easily pick out the strained and forced smile, but in others he can see the genuine, blindingly bright grin of his best friend.</p>
<p>He runs his fingers slowly over their young, smiling faces in the pictures, sniffling softly. He flips through the book, watching himself grow alongside his other half, and his heart hurts when he sees the early and mid teen pictures, seeing Link smiling like an idiot in every picture, and knowing he was hurting so, <em>so</em> bad.</p>
<p>He hears the pit-pats of small feet running across the hardwood floor, and then there’s a pair of small hands struggling to grip the duvet to pull herself up.</p>
<p>“What’re you doing, sunshine?” He asks as he helps lift his daughter onto the bed. She crawls into his lap and leans back against his chest.</p>
<p>“Is that daddy?” She asks, pointing at the picture book Rhett was looking at. The picture was from one of Rhett’s birthdays. He was blowing out the candles, and Link was watching him excitedly.</p>
<p>Rhett chuckles, and kisses the back of her head, “Yeah, Char, that was daddy. And do you know who that is?” He asks, pointing at himself.</p>
<p>Charlie shakes her head, giggling, “He looks funny,”</p>
<p>“Well, that funny looking guy is me,”</p>
<p>Charlie giggles and picks up the book to look closer, “You look funny without a beard, papa,”</p>
<p>Rhett grins, flipping the pages and letting her look along, telling her stories of himself and Link when they were just a little older than her. He leaves out the sad days, the bad days, because they don’t matter anymore. She only needs to hear the happy memories for now.</p>
<p>“Charlotte Rylie McLaughlin!” Comes a loud voice down the hall, and Rhett looks down at his daughter with wide eyes.</p>
<p>Charlie giggles and scrambles out of Rhett’s lap, trying to hide behind him. Link pushes the bedroom door open, his hair a mess and his glasses askew.</p>
<p>“Have you seen Miss Charlotte?”</p>
<p>Rhett grins, hearing Charlie giggling behind him, “I don’t know who you’re talking about,”</p>
<p>“Well, if you do hear about a certain Charlie McLaughlin, know that she was meant to help daddy clean up the Lego’s and now it’s bedtime,” Link smiles, but Rhett can see the exhaustion in his eyes.</p>
<p>“How about you go get ready for bed, and I’ll magically make her go to bed,”</p>
<p>‘thank you,’ Link mouths, before walking off to their ensuite bathroom. Rhett stands up and moves the blankets and pillows to find their daughter.</p>
<p>“Did you run away when you were meant to be helping daddy clean?”</p>
<p>She pouts up at him, “He makes cleaning up hard. He wants the colours to be in the right boxes but it’s so much faster to dump them into one box,”</p>
<p>“I’ll have a talk with him, alright?” He says, scooping her up in his arms and beginning to carry her to her bedroom, “But you still have to help clean up your own messes,”</p>
<p>“Okay, papa,” She says softly, playing with Rhett’s fluffy beard. He gets her into some pyjamas and reads her a bedtime story, making all the funny voices to make her laugh, and then tucks her into bed with a goodnight and ‘I love you’.</p>
<p>When he walks back into his bedroom, Link’s already under the blankets, hair still damp. He was flipping through the picture book now, too. “I really got lucky, didn’t I?” He wonders out loud. Rhett walks towards the bed, peeling off his tshirt and tossing it towards the laundry basket.</p>
<p>“Why do you say that?”</p>
<p>“I managed to get you as a best friend. You could’ve chosen anyone to be your best friend, and you chose me,”</p>
<p>Rhett climbs into bed, closing the picture book and tossing it to the foot of the bed, “I mean, you chose me right back, I needed you just as much as you needed me,”</p>
<p>“There was an imbalance,” Link says softly, and Rhett cups his cheek and makes him look up.</p>
<p>“It wasn’t in imbalance. You were there for me when I needed you, and I was there for you when you needed me. Just because maybe you needed me a little more, doesn’t make it an imbalance, because regardless, you were there if I needed you,”</p>
<p>Link smiles sadly, leaning up and pressing their lips together softly, “Thank you for not letting me fall,”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Find me on Tumblr @beyourmythical-bitch</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>